Following the deaths of Carl Walker-Hoover and Phoebe Prince, the Massachusetts State Legislature enacted an anti-bullying law. The new law prohibits bullying in and out of school, and extends its sphere to the electronic world. Schools are required to develop prevention plans, yet how schools will actually carry out the law in an effective manner remains ambiguous.

However, identifying bullies and the bullied is often a difficult task.

“Kids who are perpetrating can hide it, and kids who are receiving it can’t get away from it,” says Carol Constant, mother of two girls who graduated from South Hadley High School. Constant recalls instances where her daughter was being bullied in school and nothing was done about it. Since the death of Phoebe Prince, Constant argues that the community needs to claim ownership of the instances of bullying in South Hadley.

However, the question remains of who is legally responsible. Six South Hadley High School students face a variety of charges related to the bullying of Prince. When the issue of where legal responsibility lies came up in a recent meeting of community leaders, Tanya Kopec said that she did not think the students could be held legally responsible for the death of Prince since “they didn’t pull the trigger.”

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A team of UMass journalism students are reporting on approaches to curbing bullying in South Hadley and beyond as part of an investigative journalism class.

After attending a suicide prevention class in South Hadley, Kopec asked whether there should be more focus on suicide awareness rather than bullying. Both Kopec and Constant agree that the anti-bullying law is a positive step toward prevention, but neither can measure how effective it will be in schools.